Best Place in the World to be a Woman is Iceland; U.S. Ranks 23rd

Iceland has once again demonstrated itself to be the best place on earth for women to live, having finished first for the fifth year in a row with the world’s smallest gender gap.

Iceland ranked No. 1 in the latest Global Gender Gap Report, produced by the World Economic Forum. Women in Iceland enjoy the most equal access to education and healthcare and are most likely to participate fully in the country’s political and economic life, compared with all other nations, according to the survey.

The U.S. came in first in many of the report’s subindexes, particularly in educational measurements, such as literacy and enrollment in primary and secondary education. But it was ranked 67th in “wage equality for similar work” and 76th for the number of women in Congress.

The report’s authors said the gender gap narrowed slightly across the globe in 2013, with 86 of 133 countries showing improvements.

Of the 136 nations surveyed, the five countries with the biggest gender gap were all predominately Muslim: Yemen, Pakistan, Chad, Syria and Mauritania.